


like freaky friday, but with a lot more hair

by hooksnolan



Category: One Direction (Band), Taking Back Sunday
Genre: Bodyswap, Crack Fic, F/M, Gen, M/M, brand new is mentioned, louis tomlinson's brand new shoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5288828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksnolan/pseuds/hooksnolan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Styles and Adam Lazzara have nothing in common (except an abundance of hair) until they wake up in each other's bodies.</p><p>Louis's Brand New shoes are very important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like freaky friday, but with a lot more hair

**Author's Note:**

> obviously 1d isn't touring or doing snl in support of made in the am, but we can use our imagination and pretend that they are for the sake of this, an incredibly realistic fic in which adam and harry swap bodies. (same for tbs at present moment.) also because i needed a name, paul is the tour manager.
> 
> thanks to everybody who's been on board with adam or harry and liked any tweets about this while it was just an idea. thanks to logan who read this in bits and pieces until the end, and thanks to jess for editing it (further mistakes are my own). shout out to lin-manuel miranda because all i listened to was hamilton.
> 
> this fic is dedicated to whomever painted louis' devil and god shoes. you're the real mvp.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://iwillendyouinc.tumblr.com)

It was a rough night.

Adam doesn’t remember much of it, just that he’d been annoyed. He spent the entire day with the boys while Misha was out shopping for her online store and hanging with her friends. And he doesn’t mind it; he misses his boys so much while he’s on tour that he’s grateful for every second that he gets to spend with them, chasing them around the park and grabbing pizza for lunch. He knows it’s hard, what she does, essentially being a single mother for a significant portion of the year. Somehow she finds the time to write for a blog and curate a collection for her shop, too. He doesn’t want to discredit that, and he’s more than happy to be the perfect dad when he’s home, bringing Keaton to school and taking Asa to library programs, but at night, after he’s gotten the boys to bed, kissed their foreheads and read them a story, he realizes how she’s been gone all day.

So maybe he snapped, maybe he asked why he’d bothered coming home if she was just going to take off the second he did, treat him like a built-in babysitter (and he’s pushed her to hire one for a couple of hours when he’s gone, maybe call his dad, something, just to give her a breather), and not spend any time with them. He loves her too, just as much as his boys. After everything, he swore he’d stick by her side. He swore he wouldn’t let her down. And here they are, downtime from tour, and there’s a crater between the two of them.

When he wakes up with a sore back, a pounding headache, and no recollection of how he wound up on the couch, he figures he chased his words with some whiskey and was banished to the couch for the night.

It’s just that when he gives it a second thought, he realizes it doesn’t make sense.

He hasn’t touched the bottle in a while, and he knows the couch is nice. It was the first real piece of furniture they’d bought when they moved to North Carolina: rich dark leather and the softest cushions. It’s held up well too, through dogs and babies.

Adam opens his eyes and turns his head, so he's facing a dark curtain. He’s not on his couch, he’s not in his living room, and he’s certainly not in his house.

It’s familiar.

It’s a tour bus.

It explains the ache in his back, the familiar feeling of spending the night in an uncomfortable bunk finally settling in. But it doesn’t make sense is the thing. He’s not on tour; they’re between album cycles, occasionally playing a show here and there. He has one tomorrow, but he’s only flying up to New York; it’s a one off show and then a week in the studio; they’ll rent a minivan because they’re a bunch of cool dads. No tour bus required. Maybe that’s why he picked last night to have this fight, because he was leaving soon and could run away from the consequences.

It’s all too vivid to be a dream, the ache in his back and the pounding in his head very present, much too real. When he sits up, he does it abruptly and subsequently whacks his head on the ceiling of the bunk. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that something is seriously wrong, that this is more than just waking up after blacking out.

He climbs out of the top bunk, and it gets stranger, because he doesn’t usually use the top bunk (hasn’t, since that one summer when he puked on Geoff Rickley). It’s louder than their bus usually is when he first wakes up, the sound of video games coming from the back lounge, somebody playing guitar.

“Ya up, Harry?” a voice asks, clearly Irish. Adam doesn’t respond, not until the owner of the voice, a boy (and there’s no other way to describe him but boy, not with his round face, bright blue eyes, and blond hair) is right in front of him. “Harry?”

“Harry?” Adam repeats back, blinking a couple of times, almost shaking when the voice that comes out of his mouth is deeper than he expects. He clears his throat, hoping to rid traces of sleep from it. “What?”

“We’ve got an interview in an hour. Get dressed,” a second voice says, one laced with more authority and an English accent. Adam doesn’t recognize the voice, but he recognizes the tone: tour manager. What happened to Andy? Who is this?

“An interview,” Adam says slowly, finally catching the English accent clinging to his -- _not his_ \-- voice. This is getting weirder by the second.

“Yeah... Are you feeling okay?” the Irish one asks, looking at him a little concerned. Adam thinks this boy should be more concerned, considering he’s never met him before in his life. Why is everybody acting like he didn’t just wake up on some random tour bus?

“No,” he answers honestly, brow furrowing as he continues looking around at the bus. It looks like any other tour bus he’s seen before, but that doesn't comfort him. He’s seen a lot. He’s lived in them for months at a time over the past ten years of his life. He could probably navigate them in his sleep, and he probably has. Every tour bus has the line of bunks, the lounge area, the small kitchenette. There’s the area behind the driver that Adam usually makes his home and when he catches sight of it, the telltale signs that he’s been living there aren’t around. There's a knot in his stomach. “Where am I?” he finally asks because it’s too much. Not knowing where he is or what he’s doing on this bus is too much.

“Somewhere in New Jersey,” the tour manager voice answers. “Now hurry up, get dressed.”

Adam looks around and finally spots the bathroom door, wedged open. Nobody is inside and he slips in, looking at himself in the mirror.

And. Well.

That’s not him.

There are vibrant green eyes staring back at him. He blinks a couple of times, splashes water on his face, rubs his eyes, but those green eyes are still boring into him. Confusion settles across his features as he takes them in: green eyes and thin lips on a young face free from facial hair, framed by a mass of curls.

“The fuck,” he mutters, the lips mirroring the words back at him.

What is going on?

*

When Harry wakes up to the bed shaking, he thinks it’s an earthquake. He doesn’t stay in California a lot, not with constantly being on tour or visiting his family in England, so he hasn’t really experienced one before, but there’s no other explanation. Except there has to be, because he’s not supposed to be in his comfy bed with the too many pillows and silky sheets. He’s on tour, so his next thought is that he’s rolling through the United States on the tour bus, just feeling the bus bump along the road, and the clamboring at the side of the bed is just the ruckus from somewhere in the lounge. It just feels like a lot, sounds all too close, because he’s hungover. He must have had too much to drink the night before, explaining his headache, but it doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t drink like that any more. He stopped after his vomit wound up on eBay. It only needs to happen once in a lifetime to send the message loud and clear.

Harry reaches to grab the pillow he keeps wedged between himself and the tour bus wall (too many times has he woken up with bruises from flailing in his sleep), but he comes up with nothing. He doesn’t even hit the wall.

The sounds start coming in clearer now, the voices a higher pitch than what he’s used to, and they’re saying something that he definitely doesn’t hear on his tour bus.

“Dad!”

Harry’s eyes snap open, and he’s staring at two boys. One is tall, all limbs, blond hair curling slightly near his shoulders, and the other is shorter, pudgier, younger. He’s holding a pacifier in his fist and trying to shake the mattress just like the other.

“Dad, come _on_ ,” the older one says, yanking down the sheets.

Harry’s first instinct is to grab the sheets, cover up, because he has a habit of sleeping naked and the very last thing he needs to do is show himself to these children. The very first thing he needs to do is figure out who they are and why they’re calling him dad.

This makes no sense, waking up to kids he’s never seen before. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach, a feeling of dread that maybe he did get drunk last night, blackout drunk, and went home with a mom. A married woman, no less, and now her kids think it’s their dad in bed and they’ll be scarred for life. The tension relieves itself in his stomach only briefly when he recalls leaving the hotel last night flanked by security, the county cops around in case the teen girls crowded around the entrance got a little unruly. It’s always pandemonium, always requires all hands on deck from the band’s crew, the hotel staff, and the police. Harry has no idea how the fans manage to figure out what hotel they’re staying in every time, how they know what time they’re going to land at what airport, but teen girls are smart and resourceful and have the internet at their fingertips. He doesn’t doubt teen girls when they’re driven towards something, even considers their fans a force to be reckoned with. Sometimes, though, he wants to be able to leave a hotel in peace. He wants to be able to go shopping during the daytime without a security detail.

“You said you’d make us chocolate chip pancakes when mom was out,” the older one says, still going on at a volume that is much too loud for Harry to handle right now.

His mind is still racing, trying to put this together, trying to figure out why he woke up in a room he can’t recognize (though he likes the deep color on the walls and the gold threads running through the duvet and the fact that he’s surrounded by many throw pillows on the made side of the bed) to two children he’s never seen before acting like he’s their dad. The older one is definitely old enough to realize that Harry isn’t his father, so why hasn’t he caught on yet? His only option, he thinks, is that this is a weird, vivid dream about his future. He’d read about lucid dreams once, where the dreamer is aware that they’re dreaming, can control the dream, and he tries to recall the tips listed to recognize a dream. The one about time sticks out, how looking at a clock never shows the same time, so he glances at the clock on the bedside table.

“I did?” The pitch of his voice is not what he’s expecting; it’s not even what he sounds like when he first wakes up. When he glances at the clock again, time is consistent. This is not a dream, but those are not his things piled up on the nightstand. He’d never own a chain wallet.

“Yes!” The younger one squeals and then shoves his pacifier back into his mouth.

“Right then. Be right there,” Harry says, growing more confused by the second when he hears the distinctively American accent leaving his lips.

“Promise,” the older one insists, and Harry echoes back the word.

When the kids leave, Harry pushes down the covers to reveal a body that is definitely not his and pajama pants covered in the Jim Beam logo that he also would not buy. His stomach tenses as he takes in the skin before him: an arm covered in a full sleeve, tattoos scattered across the other arm, one on his chest, and one around his finger, hidden by an actual ring.

So whoever he is is married.

Harry’s shaking as he gets out of bed and stares at the ornate mirror hanging on the wall. The deep brown eyes riddled with confusion are not his. He can’t grow a beard like this, and his hair does not hang as straight to his shoulders. He lets out a shaky breath and tugs roughly at the hair, feeling the pain in his scalp and conceding once again that this is not a dream. He wants to curl back up in the bed, sink into the soft mattress, and fall asleep until he can wake up in his uncomfortable bunk.

“Dad,” he hears from somewhere within the house, and Harry knows that’s not an option. These kids want to eat.

*

“Styles,” the tour manager barks, knocking on the bathroom door, interrupting Adam as he takes in the body that is not his. The tattoos are different. He’s not wearing his wedding band. There’s some definition in the abs that he doesn’t have. The pajama pants and tee shirt he woke up in are definitely not his, too luxurious feeling to be something he bought or Misha gifted him. “Styles, get dressed. C’mon.”

Adam takes a moment to catch his breath before he slowly opens the bathroom door, staring at the tour manager, red in the face.

“You’re not even dressed. You boys,” he huffs, sounding increasingly exasperated. Adam doesn’t want to get on his bad side, doesn’t want to piss anybody off while he’s in a body he can’t recognize, so he excuses himself with a mumble and heads back to the bunk.

Adam starts to dig through Harry’s suitcase when he finds it (it’s got a YSL luggage tag, H.S. written small on the slip of paper). It’s full of things he’d never wear but knows Misha would love to get her hands on. The ornately patterned silk shirts slip through his fingers as he pulls out a pair of black skinny jeans, the denim softer than anything he’s ever owned. He gets dressed, amazed at how the jeans seem to slide up his legs and settle on his hips, looking like they’re painted on. The shirts are already half buttoned, so he just slips one over his head, leaving it that way only for a second before his self consciousness catches up with him and he goes ahead and does up the next two buttons, leaving it open enough that the light catches the silver cross around his neck. By the suitcase is a pair of boots, gold and too extravagant for Adam’s taste, but he slips them on and can’t believe footwear can feel this comfortable. Harry, whoever he is, has money and enjoys the finer things in life.

He’s completely dressed, but he still feels naked. When he looks down at himself, he catches his bare ring finger and figures it out. It only takes a second for him to locate a small case of jewelry in Harry’s suitcase, which is full of hair ties (he slips one around his wrist) and rings. He grabs the first one he sees and slips it on, feeling slightly more at ease.

“A little modest today?” a new voice asks. It’s another boy, English this time, and shorter than Harry. His features are sharp, eyes bright blue, and more tactile than the other two people Adam had met already because he’s nudging into him and then pulling one of the buttons loose on his shirt. “Much better,” he comments, patting his back, and then walking away.

The whole interaction leaves Adam stunned in place for a second, blinking at the other boy’s back.

“We’re here,” the tour manager says again. “Good to see you dressed,” he says pointedly at Adam, and there’s a second where Adam thinks he’s going to throw up. How is he supposed to get through an interview when he doesn’t even know who he is?

Luckily, or unfortunately -- Adam can’t decide -- he doesn’t really have time to think. In a second, he and three other boys (the Irish one, the invasive one, and one he didn’t meet) step off the bus, greeted by the screams of girls barricaded away from the entrance. Security pushes the boys through, not giving them a second to stop, even though the fourth boy tries to scribble his name on the paper a girl is holding out for him, and he’s positive they all wind up in a couple surprise selfies.

There is no way in hell that this interview is going to go over well.

When they get into the studio, there are a dozen people running around. It’s more put together than any of the interviews Adam has done in the past, which usually involve a hand held camera in the least dim corner of whatever venue they’re playing at. Before them is a couch with enough space for the four boys to sit without being uncomfortable. Adam follows suit when the other three sit down, placing himself between the armrest and the Irish one.

“I’m here with One Direction,” the interviewer says, gesturing to the four of them.

“Oh,” Adam says, with a sharp intake of breath. He knows of One Direction; he knows they’re big, much bigger than Adam or the rest of Taking Back Sunday could ever hope to be. The other boys and the woman interviewing them all throw him a glance. He shrugs it off and gives a wave. “Hi.”

The interview starts off pleasant. The other three field the questions, Adam hoping to get by on a claim of vocal rest. From what he gathers, they’ve recently released a new album and they’re touring in support of it. Adam’s plan of getting through the interview by feigning vocal rest and claiming to be sick is shattered when the interviewer finally hones in on him and starts asking questions, eyes focused solely on him. It’s like the other boys don’t exist when she asks, “What’s the meaning behind Perfect?”

Adam has never listened to a One Direction song -- at least, not intentionally. He never even considered the fact that One Direction could have a hand in writing their own music; he didn’t think that pop acts did that. He thought they just sang whatever they were handed.

“Uh, well,” Adam fumbles, eyes darting around the studio, looking quickly at the other three for backup, but the two at the far end of the couch are engaged in something and the blond next to him is looking expectantly at him. “I think people take different things from songs. It means different things to different people, different from what I intended when I wrote it. And I don’t want to take that away from anybody by saying what it’s about.”

Once he’s done rambling a bit, Adam thinks he answered the question well enough. It’s more or less an answer he’d used in different album cycles, when he was pressed about song meanings. The interviewer thinks it’s satisfactory too, because she relents and moves on to other questions. Adam spends the rest of the interview twisting the ring around his finger, relieved when it’s finally over.

*

Pancakes, Harry can do.

He finds his way to the kitchen slowly, taking in the framed photos on the wall. He sees the man whose body he’s inhabiting with the two boys and a blonde woman, all of them smiling. The wall in the kitchen has guitars hanging, like an art installation, and he wonders if the man actually plays them. The boys are already in the kitchen, the older one gathering ingredients for pancakes and setting them on the island. The refrigerator is covered in more family photos and art work, signed by Keaton at various ages. When he pulls a photo from the fridge, the back says _Adam, Keaton, Asa OBX 2015_. Logically, Keaton is the older child, Asa is the baby, and he is Adam.

“Alright, you,” he says, pointing at Asa, “are in charge of the dry ingredients.”

“Dad,” Keaton says, a laugh tinging his voice as he grabs a couple of mixing bowls and then the measuring spoons. “The flour’s just as big as him.”

“Sure is,” Harry answers, scooping Asa up and sitting him in the plastic booster seat. “Get plates?”

Keaton nods and grabs a step stool from the corner to get plastic plates from a cabinet. The boy is comfortable in the kitchen, edging closer to Harry and trying to get involved. He’s obviously close with his father, and it makes Harry concentrate harder on the ingredients he’s dumping into the bowl.

It may be weird that the first thing he does upon waking up in somebody else’s body is make pancakes, but it’s giving him a distraction. With the task at hand, he can’t think, can’t panic. Measuring out ingredients is calming for him, and he would be powerless to deny the two boys pancakes, particularly when they are something their father promised them.

As it turns out, despite the fact that making pancakes is a good distraction, it is also a bit of a failure. Harry knows there’s a difference between the pancakes he grew up eating on Shrove Tuesday and American pancakes. He’s had both, and he knows how to make English pancakes. He just doesn’t know what makes the American ones so fluffy, and he thinks he should. He was a baker after all. For English pancakes, they’re perfect. Harry hopes the kids don’t notice because Keaton keeps looking at him strangely. And Harry can’t imagine his cover being blown by a child. He’s not sure why he doesn’t want to be discovered as an imposter, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he has no idea who he is or _why_ he is this person. He cuts the pancakes into bite sized pieces and then places them in front of the boys.

“Hey,” Keaton calls, and of course. Of course nothing gets by children. “These are different.”

“We're uh, out. Of some of the ingredients,” Harry says slowly, not used to the sound of this man’s voice, the slight twang of a southern accent. It's appeases Keaton, apparently, because he shrugs and douses the pancakes in enough syrup to drown Asa.

With the kids distracted by pancakes and Harry’s stomach too tied up in knots to be hungry, he takes a moment to look around the house. It feels like snooping as he reads the notes on the fridge and checks out the calendar. Dates are crossed off, presumably as they pass, and Harry is only slightly relieved to find that despite being in somebody else’s body there’s no significant time loss. Tomorrow’s date is circled with a note scribbled in the box.

_adam leaves for week_

So Adam is leaving, and he’s in Adam’s body. He has no idea who Adam is or where he might be going, and now more than before it feels like a deadline is looming over his head. He’s only got a few hours to sort this out, wake up from this nightmare, or people might find out. Harry doesn’t know how to explain it to anybody without sounding crazy or what that could even accomplish.

One wall in the house is covered in a familiar sight: framed records. They’re all for Adam Lazzara and Taking Back Sunday. There are a couple of different records, but Harry doesn’t bother looking at the record names. He’s more relieved that he has a full name, a band name, and some information to go off of. He can Google things now. He’d seen an iPad on the counter, and when he grabs it, he finds that it’s locked. He’s only staring at it for a moment before Keaton snags it away from him.

Keaton unlocks it with ease because he’s a child and children these days are well-versed in technology. Harry can see the smudges left on the glass from the syrup he’d managed to get all over his hands and face. He grabs the tablet back and then looks down at him.

“Wash up,” he tells him, clearing the table and then wiping Asa’s hands and face clean.

All Harry wants is a moment with the iPad to Google Adam, look up information about him, and switching bodies and what they can do to switch back. He needs to figure out how to get in touch with Adam in his body (and he’s positive Adam is in his body; he’s seen enough movies with Gemma to know that’s how it works) but it’s an impossible task when there are two children to watch after. And the boys want Harry’s attention, want him to engage with them. It’s a nice distraction though, playing with the boys, leaving him with no time to think about what might happen if he never finds his way back to his body.

There’s finally a brief moment to check on Google when the boys are coloring. He manages to check the wikipedia on Taking Back Sunday, not expecting it to be so confusing. He thought they had it bad when Zayn left, but that’s nothing compared to Taking Back Sunday’s history, apparently. He gets lost in all the lineup changes, even with the little diagram the article provides.

Luckily, there’s another recognizable name in the band’s tumultuous history.

Brand New.

*

Maybe Adam should question why he’s in a pop star’s body, but the owner of the body doesn’t concern him. What concerns him is the fact that he is in a body that is not his. He’s been surrounded by people who believe in magical things -- Eddie and his ghosts and Misha and her crystals -- but it still doesn’t make this any easier. (Though, now that this has happened, he should probably stop making fun of Eddie. If he can wake up in somebody else’s body then maybe all those venues Eddie had sworn were haunted actually were.) He’s panicking about not being home, about the fact that a pop star is most likely inhabiting his own body back in North Carolina with the responsibility of looking over his children. What could Harry Styles know about taking care of a six- and two- year old? He’s panicking, digging through Harry’s belongings, hoping there is some kind of fix to this, because he certainly has no idea where to start. He doesn’t think anybody would believe him if he said he wasn’t Harry, if he told them that he was just a 34-year old dad in a mildly successful rock band. When it comes down to it, he doesn’t think having Harry committed is the fix to this.

Finally, he finds Harry’s phone. He thinks he’ll just Google this problem ( _help, I’ve switched bodies with a pop star!_ ) and he’ll get an answer and be on his way. The problem is Harry is just like him in that he keeps a passcode on his phone. And if Harry’s band is anything like his own, then nobody knows the passcode lest you want your band to have access to all your information. It’s only logical then that the laptop he finds is also password protected. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get in touch with Harry then.

The touchy one from earlier -- Louis, as he’d been introduced during the interview -- is in the back lounge playing video games. Adam has no idea where everybody else is; maybe in the dressing room relaxing. Adam just knows he can’t relax at a time like this.

Adam falls into place next to him, sitting down and kicking out his -- Harry’s -- long legs. Harry, it seems, is only a bit shorter than he actually is. He can play some video games -- the Mario Ones, Skylander with Keaton, and any other games that he can play by button mashing, which is the only reason he holds the title as runner up in the Mortal Kombat competitions they have on the Taking Back Sunday bus -- but sports games aren’t something any of the band plays. He rarely watches sports, which sometimes works against him, like the time he’d mentioned the Mets while in Philadelphia.

Apparently video games aren’t exactly Harry’s strong suit either, because Louis looks over at him and raises an eyebrow.

“FIFA, Haz?” He asks incredulously, the game paused. It’s soccer, which Adam knows a little about from the time Keaton had played. But that hadn’t worked out well, because five-year olds don’t quite get it and wind up having more fun running up and down the field than trying to kick the ball in the goal. It had been fun to watch at least, and Adam is hit with another wave of missing his boys. Adam knows he won’t be able to play for shit, but Louis starts a new game and hands him the spare controller.

Louis is good at FIFA, it turns out, and Adam is just absolutely miserable at it. Button mashing doesn’t seem to work, and that means it requires way more skill than Adam has to offer. It starts off decently but falls apart, and Louis looks bored halfway through the game. He grabs a beer from his side and then turns to look at Adam, blue eyes piercing through him. “Are you feeling alright?”

“No,” Adam answers honestly, dropping the controller on his lap. He grabs a beer of his own and then sets it down, thinking better of it. Drinking probably won’t help fix his problem here. His eyes wander from Louis’s face and look around the back lounge, littered with snacks and drinks and clothes. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say. How is he supposed to explain to this kid who he is and what happened when he doesn’t even know what happened? ‘I woke up in your band mate’s body’ doesn’t make any sense, and he knows it’s unbelievable. And does he expect a member of One Direction to have any idea who he or his band is? They live in entirely different spheres.

Louis shifts, toeing off his shoes and crossing his legs, and it draws Adam’s attention downward. He looks at the shoes and it all clicks into place.

Never in a million years would Adam have guessed that a member of One Direction had shoes painted with a Brand New album cover. But then again, he really truly shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point.

“Louis, can I tell you something you’ll never believe?” Adam asks, leaning over to grab the shoe. Louis is staring at him like he’s nuts, but then shrugs. “I’m not Harry.”

“Did you need me shoe for that?” Louis asks, grabbing it back.

“No. But, well,” Adam stutters. He’s suddenly nervous that Louis won’t believe him. And honestly, there really is no reason for him to believe anything. “I’m Adam Lazzara.”

*

Harry knows Brand New because Louis loves Brand New. Back when they shared a flat, he’d gotten a crash course in all Louis’s favorite music. They would spend hours wrapped up in the covers, teas in their hands, watching youtube videos of the bands Louis loved performing. When they first started and opened for Big Time Rush, they played some of the same venues. He can remember the way Louis looked on those smaller stages, the fans much closer to them. It was short lived because they blew up afterward, launching themselves right into arenas and stadiums. He thinks that Louis even tried to explain the bands’ histories to him on their downtime, and now that he’s trying to wrap his mind around the confusing Wikipedia article he definitely remembers Louis drawing diagrams. They hadn't helped back then either.

The only thing Harry thinks is that he has to get in touch with Louis.

He really isn't sure what Louis will be able to do, but Taking Back Sunday is right up his alley, and he's currently hanging out with Adam. He wonders if Adam has told him that he's not Harry yet, and if Louis even believes him. He can imagine the look of disbelief on his face before he laughs loud in his face. Harry misses it.

Harry doesn't have much time to think about it though, because he's watching Adam’s kids, and Adam’s kids are very high energy. Coloring is a short-lived task, so they move into the living room. After playing with every toy, leaving them strewn about the floor in their wake, they move on to dress up. Harry helps Asa get in a Robin costume while Keaton puts on a Batman one, and soon they're running around pretending Harry is the villain. He goes along with it, not wanting to let the kids know anything is off -- if they would even understand it -- and if he's being honest, playing with the kids is a good distraction.

And they keep him distracted. After dress up, they play video games. Harry is not much help, having no idea what a Skylander is, but Keaton doesn't stay occupied with that for too long. He won't sit still to watch TV either, so when Asa finally falls asleep, they go outside. There's a dog out there, and Keaton spends a long time chasing her around and playing on the swings. Harry finally has a minute to contemplate how he's going to get in touch with Louis. He doesn't have his number without his phone; they're forced to change them far too often for him to memorize it. His only option is using the iPad to DM Louis’s mother and try and get her to relay a message.

When he finally presses send, his message to Jay is _tell Louis to message me, emergency - h xx_. It's abrupt and unlike him, no details included, but it gets the point across and he has no other option. He just hopes Jay checks her twitter soon and can get in touch with Louis. He has no idea what Louis might be up to, other than a show. He can hardly keep track of their interviews and television appearances these days; it’s a good thing he has somebody that does that for him.

Harry and Keaton finally go inside when Asa starts to stir from his nap. Harry is exhausted. Even though he spent the last hour and a half just sitting around, watching Keaton seemed to burn energy. He needs a nap, and he's about to suggest putting on a movie. Maybe he can get them to sit still. Now he knows what Paul must feel like, chasing them around. At that thought, his stomach tightens again. He misses his tour family; having spent five years in such close quarters with them, they're like his real family. He sees them more than that, anyway.

“Is it lunch yet?” Keaton asks, hanging around Harry in the kitchen.

“What'll we be having?” Harry asks, looking at Keaton as he rummages through a couple of cabinets.

“Lunch!” Asa shouts from his place on the ground, where he's laying all over the dog. She doesn't seem to mind this, so it's probably routine for her.

“Star Wars Mac ‘n cheese,” Keaton says, pulling out a box and shoving it into Harry’s hands.

“Star Wars Mac ‘n cheese it is.”

While Harry’s making the mac and cheese (and of course he’s making it. He has no idea how Adam manages to leave this kids to go on tour; they’re cute, and they probably get away with everything), he contemplates what might’ve got him into this mess. He’s pretty sure the answer lies in the original problem, but he can’t remember a possible inciting incident. This isn’t like normal body swapping movies, where somebody switches their bodies so they can have a better understanding of each other. He hadn’t known Adam from a hole in the wall before this.

*

“What?” Louis asks. He's staring at Adam in complete disbelief, brow furrowed, while he holds his shoe in the air. It's like he froze in place, and Adam backs up slightly because he’s not too fond of being smacked with footwear. It’s happened a couple of times in his life, and that is already too many times for him.

“From Taking Back Sunday?” Adam prods, because there's no way he's got Brand New shoes without having any idea who Taking Back Sunday is. For once in his life, he’s glad that the history of his band is so deeply intertwined with Brand New’s. All those interviews spent fielding questions about Jesse Lacey are suddenly worth it for this moment alone. (Of course, there’d be no “this moment” if he hadn’t woke up in Harry Styles’ body, but he’ll take what he can get at this point.) He revels for just a brief second in the fact that a boy bander knows of his band. “How can I prove it?”

“Are you having me on?” Louis asks, eyes narrowed at Adam. Adam can't believe it is this easy to convince Louis that he's actually Adam and not Harry. But, then again, he’s not doing a good job at being Harry, and Louis has been the one to notice. At least once during the interview he asked if he was feeling alright.

It's at this time when Louis’s phone rings. It must be important because Louis jumps to answer it when he catches the caller ID and then walks out of the lounge area. Adam’s left to himself, hoping there's some way to fix it, but he's not sure what he's expecting Louis to be able to do. If he has no idea and the internet doesn’t turn up any sort of solution, there’s a good chance Louis won’t know either.

At least saying it out loud didn't make him feel even crazier. He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a heavy sigh. He misses his boys so much. He hates being gone as it is, hates missing so much of their lives while he’s touring the world. He missed Keaton’s first day of kindergarten and the first loose tooth. He was lucky he managed to catch Asa’s first step, but he missed his first word. Waking up on tour without having said goodbye is officially the worst feeling in the world.

“Did you message me mum?” Louis asks, breaking the silence and intruding Adam’s thoughts. He snaps to attention. Louis is staring down at him. Confusion must be all over Adam’s face because Louis continues, “She just called, saying she got a weird message from your twitter account. About needing to talk to me and how it’s an emergency?”

“My twitter account?” Adam asks, more confused. He doesn’t know Louis’s mom or her twitter handle. He doesn’t have a phone or the internet, and if he did, he would not be preoccupied with twitter.

“Harry?” Louis asks, blue eyes still boring into him, and then it clicks in Adam’s head. Louis forgot, or didn’t believe, the bit about him not being Harry.

“Adam,” he corrects, standing up and running a hand through his hair. “Which means Harry is in North Carolina wanting to talk to you.”

“The fuck is going on?” Louis finally says after a pause. He sounds just as confused as he looks, which is only a reflection of the way Adam is feeling at the moment.

“I woke up in Harry’s body, and Harry’s probably in mine. Is he good with kids? I’ve got sons and I was supposed to be with them all day,” Adam rambles, letting his thoughts get ahead of himself. He’s supposed to be focused on getting back into his own body, but he’s a dad and worrying about his children takes precedence.

“You’re serious.”

“Wouldn’t lie,” Adam promises, knowing that Louis is having a hard time believing it. If Adam weren’t the one in Harry’s body, then he wouldn’t believe it either. He just has no option.

“So, now what?” Louis asks, his eyes moving about Harry’s body, as if he’s trying to find something wrong or out of place.

“We have to get in touch with Harry.” That’s where his plan ends. He’s not sure what to do after that, but he’s hoping Harry has some kind of idea. Or together they can brainstorm something, and now they have a third brain involved. “I can’t get into any of his things, don’t know his password. But I do know my number.”

*

Harry is finishing the mac n cheese when Adam’s phone rings. Asa and Keaton are sitting at the table, coloring in the books they’d left there after breakfast.

_Unknown Number_

Harry can’t answer the phone. He can barely manage the kids, so he knows he can’t get away with pretending to be Adam on the phone. He doesn’t decline the call, just lets it ring until it goes to voicemail; he’s not sure if Adam is the type of guy to decline calls, but he isn’t. Harry learns shortly after that that Adam has text previews on because he can read the body of the next text.

_answer the phone haz !_

He knows that space before an exclamation point anywhere. When the phone rings a minute later, he answers it right away.

“Harry?” It’s Louis on the other line, and there’s an ache in Harry’s chest and a sudden burst of homesickness. He’s never been more relieved to hear that voice in his life, and he’s glad that of all the people Adam decided to tell about the body swapping, Louis was his choice. Liam might be the most serious thinker, but Louis would be his choice too. Louis is always his choice, even though they’re distant in the real world.

“Yeah,” he responds. He can hear Louis mutter ‘christ’ and then there’s a minute.

“What did you do? Wound up in somebody else’s body? Harold.” Louis doesn’t even sound shocked, which Harry should be offended by. It’s not like he’s constantly waking up in other people’s bodies. For the most part, Harry likes to think he’s been pretty stable despite most of his adolescence being in the spotlight.

“I guess,” Harry answers, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder so he can strain the macaroni. Even with Louis sounding so exasperated, he just wants to reach through phone and hug him. A crayon falls on the floor, and Harry remembers that he’s got the kids around and he can’t say anything that Keaton might hear and repeat back to anybody else. He’s not really trying to damage Adam’s relationship with his son.

“And mum’s gotten some strange message from you and she's worried. I just told her you'd locked yourself in the loo, but honestly Harry.”

Louis is going on and on, sounding increasingly more exasperated by the whole situation as he goes, and the kids and dog are looking at Harry, waiting for lunch. He’s isn’t sure how he’s supposed to juggle this, how anybody juggles children. Obviously feeding the kids is important, but so is meeting up with Louis and Adam so he can get back in his own body where he doesn’t have so many responsibilities. 

“Can you feed the dog?” he asks, looking at Keaton.

“What are you on about?” Louis asks. He sounds so confused, and Harry can just imagine him pacing the back lounge of the bus. By now, he figures they’re at whatever venue they’re playing. But he knows Louis, and he knows that Louis spends as much time on the bus as he possibly can, making it his home and finding solace in its familiarity. “What dog?”

“Not you. Keaton.”

“Keaton?” Louis sounds the most confused Harry has ever heard him. He hears his own voice -- and isn’t that the weirdest thing ever? -- answer ‘my son’ in the background. “Okay, okay. Adam wants to know if his boys are okay?”

There’s a shuffling sound and then, “Are they okay?” It’s the first thing Adam asks once he’s got the phone. Harry sets the bowls of food before them and hums in response. He’s still trying to wrap his mind around hearing his voice. It’s a lot different than hearing playbacks of audio or his voice on his voicemail message. It’s in real time. He can only imagine that seeing himself -- Adam in his body -- is going to be just as strange.

“We’re having lunch right now,” he answers. He leaves the boys in the kitchen and finds a bathroom to lock himself into. Explaining this phone call to Adam’s kids is not something he's sure he'd be able to do. Keeping all this a secret seems like a much better idea. It's unspoken between the three of them that the fewer people involved, the better.

“What the fuck is going on?” Adam finally says, voicing Harry’s thoughts. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever heard his own voice sound that angry. It’s wild. “We have to figure this out now. I can’t be you. I don’t even know you.”

Harry isn’t upset by that. Adam’s age range is out of their demographic, and he doesn’t have any younger daughters that One Direction might have been marketed to. And he knows how tiring it can to be him, being shuffled between interviews and photoshoots and award shows. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t know how Adam is Adam, how he manages to have children and a family while also being in a band. Harry knows people do it, even some of their crew have families, but Adam leaves to go on tour and just from these hours, Harry feels like Adam spends a lot of time with his kids. He hasn’t seen a trace of his wife since the kids mentioned Mom that morning.

*

After the phone call, Adam and Louis spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch. They’ve spent some time Googling how to get back into your own body, but it doesn’t wind up being much help. Any of the questions about it wind up being answered with skepticism and then none of the stories wind up resolved, like the poster never thought to come back and update it to help the next person out. Of course, it leaves room for the nagging feeling in Adam’s gut that maybe those people never wound up back in their own bodies, but he tamps that feeling down. The only headway they make in terms of a solution is deciding that they have to meetup. Despite not being near each other when the switch occurred, it seems like the answer lies in them being together.

As Louis and Adam-in-Harry’s-body are part of the biggest pop act in the world, they’re all in agreement that Harry will have to come to them. Harry is ready to leave that night and meetup, figure out the solution, but Adam puts his foot down and insists Harry stays the night in his place, looks after his boys for him. They’ll meet up the next day when they both have shows in New York. He just doesn’t want to disturb their routine, and he wants his sons to get their fill of having their father around before he has to leave for a week. He’s been pretty adamant about them having a solid upbringing, something consistent despite the fact that he’s always leaving. He grew up with his parents always fighting up until the point when they got divorced, and he wants nothing more than for his kids to have the idyllic childhood he didn’t have. Adam insists he takes the scheduled flight to New York tomorrow, where they will meet up as soon as they can and swap back into their bodies.

Over the phone, he gives Harry an exhaustive rundown on the bedtime routine, any important information about his wife, and a list of things to pack for a weeklong trip (it’s not much, considering Adam wears the same thing on stage every night and then have no problem spending the rest of the week in the same jeans and tee shirt).

Now, Louis is typing a list of song titles, “the setlist,” he explains, pressing closer to Adam. The rest of the guys are in the dressing room or running around the empty stadium, burning off energy. Apparently there’s a trainer on tour with them, and Liam had asked Adam to spar with him, but Adam knows nothing about boxing, so he declined. He’s having a lot of luck playing it off like he’s not feeling very well.

“Okay,” Adam says, watching a list of 25 songs form before his eyes.

“You need to learn Harry’s parts.”

“What?”

“There’s a show tonight, _Harry_ ,” Louis says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like he’s supposed to go out on stage in front of a stadium full of people and pretend to be on of the biggest pop stars in the world.

And really, what else did he expect?

He can claim vocal rest during an interview and hide in the bus pretending he’s not feeling well, but even he knows how awful it is to disappoint fans. Very rarely does he miss shows, but he missed a few once, Spencer filling on vocals, and while he was consumed with worry about Asa, he still felt guilty about missing the shows. If he can force Harry to stick around his boys for a night, he can bullshit his way through a One Direction concert. They probably have a backing track.

They do not have a backing track, he finds out, when he and Louis watch a few videos of the songs they’re playing. For each song, Louis points out Harry’s solos -- which, yikes -- and then when he sings in the choruses. Adam makes him type it all out, and Louis has no problem doing this, pressing pretty close to Adam. He’s pretty sure that Louis has no idea what personal space is.

At least there’s no choreography.

“You can do whatever you want,” Louis tells him when he asks. They’re sharing a pair of earbuds as they listen, an extra precaution in case somebody else hops on the bus and then they have to explain why they’re listening to their own band. “Just don’t spend too much time hanging around me.”

Adam raises an eyebrow, but Louis is focused on typing out Harry’s verse, so he doesn't get a chance to ask about the prickliness in his voice or why getting close on stage is not okay but they're allowed to be pressed together on a spacious couch.

They spend the entire afternoon studying parts until Paul wrangles them backstage; Louis’s notes turn out to be very good and the songs are catchy enough that Adam doesn’t think he’ll have that much trouble remembering the songs. But there are nerves in Adam’s stomach that haven't been there in years and when he finally steps on stage, he feels like high-tailing it out of there. The last time he played to a crowd of comparable size was opening for Green Day and even then, he was definitely not sober. Most of the larger venues he’s played with Taking Back Sunday have been under the influence of something, and he’s never felt so ill-prepared before in his life.

“Alright?” Louis asks, slapping him on the back before the lights dim and they get on stage. Everybody is buzzing with anxiety, ready to get on stage and start the show, but Adam wants to run the other way.

He realizes very quickly that it is not “alright.” The first song starts and they’re walking down a catwalk, singing and waving to the fans. And that’s so bizarre. Adam has never walked down a catwalk, and the fans are so far away from them. He’s used to being able to stretch across to the front row at least, maybe climb into the crowd. On top of all that space, there’s a line of security guards blocking the boys from the crowd. He recognizes one or two of them from their crew. The stadium goes on for miles, it seems, filled with fans. Past the first row or two, he can’t really make out any distinct faces, but he can see lit up signs and glow bracelets. This is worlds away from a Taking Back Sunday show, and Adam is not in his element.

The boys move very quickly through their setlist, but Adam was expecting that with 25 songs. He makes a couple of mistakes right off the bat, particularly when he goes to swing his microphone and it flies out of his hand. It hits the stage with a sickening thud, and he knows he’s lucky it didn’t fly into the crowd. Louis shoots him a glare for that, but he just shrugs and picks it up, carrying on like it never happened. He moves about the stage, making sure he spends a decent amount of time on both sides of the catwalk, and he makes sure he doesn’t spend too much time by Louis, which doesn’t wind up being all that difficult. It seems like Louis and Liam are in their own little world, chasing each other around with water bottles and throwing things the crowd has chosen to throw on stage at each other. Adam narrowly misses being pegged by a fan’s cellphone. When he’s got the mic tucked safely into the stand, he dances. He lets himself feel it at his own shows and he knows that’s okay while being Harry just from the few videos he’d seen on youtube.

The show ends with a bang of fireworks and confetti, the screams of girls drowning out the last chords of the song. Adam follows as the rest of the boys run back up the catwalk and backstage, waving to everybody they pass as they go. He finds himself in the middle of a group hug, too consumed with the post-show high to care that he’s not Harry and this isn’t his band.

*

Harry cannot sleep. As per Adam’s instructions, he put the children to bed with a story and a kiss on the forehead each. He checked them once to make sure they were still tucked in and sleeping, and then he found himself in bed. Adam’s wife came home after dinner, carrying bags and boxes, and then she headed up straight to her office. When he poked his head in there earlier, he’d seen a clothing rack filled with clothes that should’ve been left in the 90s and a computer, and when he asked Adam about it, he said she ran an online clothing shop. She spends her night holed up in there, hardly coming out to talk to him. Harry thinks it’s weird behavior considering her husband is leaving in the morning, but it is definitely not his place to ask, and he’s not going to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong, especially when he’s not sure if that’s what Adam would do.

After situating his boarding pass and backpack and guitar near the front door, he retreats back to the bedroom. The closet is filled with dresses and skirts and shoes, and the dressers are filled with jeans and sweaters and tee shirts. He knew this already from when he had to pack. Now, he gets to rummage through the notebook lying near Adam’s side of the bed, glancing at words that haven’t become lyrics yet. Harry doesn’t feel bad snooping through Adam’s belongings; he knows anybody else would do the same if they woke up as somebody else. It’s sentimental and about being in love, and Harry can’t make sense of the fact that his wife is hidden away in a different room. Again, not his place.

Harry grabs Adam’s laptop once he’s done going through the notebook and once he’s found a bowl full of hideous rings (he slips a couple onto his fingers, feeling a bit more like himself with a handful instead of just one). Not waiting for Adam or Louis to get in touch with him, he looks up reviews online. He’s sure the internet will be ablaze if Adam somehow outed himself. He finds shining reviews of their show instead. Every article touches on Louis and Liam’s stage antics, how well they sounded despite Zayn’s absence (and he wonders how long Zayn’s absence will be brought up, if it will be for the rest of their career), and then a couple of articles mention Harry. They mention him being coordinated on his feet, the set void of any tripping from him even with fancy footwork. Harry’s pleased, feels his stomach fill with pride. Nothing went wrong. It’s such a relief. He spends the rest of the night looking up videos of Taking Back Sunday. He’s interested, and the videos he watched with Louis so long ago don’t stick out in his mind any more. The videos never mattered. Being close with Louis, sharing something that was important to him did.

Adam on stage is something else. He swiftly covers the length of the stage, microphone cord trailing behind him as he walks. The songs are high energy, and Adam shimmies to fit the tone; he swings his mic, and Harry watches as it flies through the air, only to wrap around and around Adam’s neck, cord crisscrossing and leaving red lines in its wake. In all of the videos he watches, Adam never drops it once. No wonder the reviews of the show thought Harry was coordinated. In a couple of videos, Adam does a handstand mid-set, and in another he scales the stage support and swings upside down while singing. It’s in stark contrast to the more somber songs, where Adam clings onto his microphone while singing about holding on tight and for dear life. Harry can’t wait to be back in his own body because he knows he’d never be able to fill those boots.

In the morning, Harry is disappointed to find himself in Adam’s body still. He piles the kids into the car and they drop Keaton off at school. Misha drives him to the airport, and the goodbye is even more awkward than Harry thought it would be. He wonders if this is how they always are, or if she senses something is up, or if this is the reason something is up. He did see a lot of crystals in her office, and he briefly wonders if she’s a witch. She gets to see Adam in a week though, and they can fix things then. Harry thinks Adam is lucky, that he only has to be gone for a week; he feels like he’s been on the road nonstop since he was 16. There’s a gnawing doubt in the back of Harry’s mind that they won’t be able to fix this, and he’ll be stuck as Adam forever, but he pushes that back and boards the plane. He’s meeting up with Adam and Louis tonight before their shows and they’ll switch back, and it’ll be the end of it.

The plan is for Harry to meet up with Adam and Louis at their venue. It’s a lot easier for Harry to get into MetLife Stadium (technically New Jersey, but tour routing considers it New York; apparently it’s close enough) than it is for Louis and Adam-in-Harry’s body to get out of it. That would require explaining the situation to security and securing a ride and trying to navigate Manhattan undetected, and Harry and Louis have been doing this long enough to know that nothing stays quiet for them. That’s the problem, Harry thinks, that he can’t have anything private. It’s always splashed out in the tabloids and on the internet for everybody to consume and judge and ruin. He grabs an Uber to the venue, which is a weird thing -- he’s never grabbed an Uber before. But Adam suggested it and no screaming girls followed him from the airport to the venue.

Never in his life has Harry been more excited to see his security guards. He waves to them excitedly and frowns when he’s met with confused glares. Then he remembers that he’s in Adam’s body. He makes his way to the box office; Louis and Adam arranged for his -- Adam’s -- name to be on the list for an all access pass. Paul thought they were crazy, but Louis played it off like it would be a funny joke if the singer of a band he’d been into since before the X Factor showed up to one of the shows. Now, Harry-in-Adam’s body is standing before a very confused Paul.

“Louis is gonna lose his mind,” he says, handing him the pass.

Harry finds his way to the bus with ease. He remembers the access code and nobody spares him a second glance. He supposes he should be concerned, but then again security probably isn’t worried about a 30-something-year old man walking with purpose. They’re on the lookout for girls trying to break in. Harry isn’t all that threatened by girls, but if he didn’t know Adam and he suddenly came face-to-face with him on the bus, he’d be worried. He’ll have to bring this up to security when he’s in his own body.

*

Louis and Adam are in the back lounge, playing video games. Mario Kart is on the TV, and they’ve both got Wiimotes in their hands, nudging against each other to trip the other up. Nothing could have ever prepared Harry for looking at his own body like this, hunched over playing video games. It’s Harry’s body, but Adam’s mannerisms. It’s surreal.

He must make a noise, because Louis makes eye contact with him, blue eyes becoming impossibly wide as he drops the controller.

“Jesus,” he mutters, fumbling to pick it up and hit the pause button. It’s too late; Adam’s already taken advantage and pulled into first, but the game isn’t important any more.

Adam looks up too, and Jesus is right, because there is something incredibly strange about looking up at his body like this. It’s quiet for a moment, Adam and Harry staring at each other, and Louis staring at Harry-in-Adam’s body. He is, however, the one that finally breaks the silence.

“Alright, lads. Any ideas?” Harry and Adam are still staring at each other, stuck in a trance almost, and Louis wants to shock both of them out of it -- go for the nuts or pinch a nipple. Harry might expect it, but it would certainly freak Adam out, and he decides against it. He finally asks, “Lads?” a bit louder, because apparently he’s the only one that wants to get this done today.

“Uh,” Harry says at the same time Adam says, “no.”

“Well, I reckon you have to kiss,” he suggests.

At any rate, this gets them to stop staring at each other and look at him.

“That's how things get fixed in movies,” Louis says with a shrug, as if it would be the most obvious solution.

“What?” Adam asks.

“Neither of you had any ideas.” He leans over and shuts off the game, not too concerned about it any more. And Adam isn’t looking and Louis isn’t about to admit that he was going to lose to him. “It’s like a movie, innit? Like Freaky Friday, but with a lot more hair?”

“That's a lot of hair,” Harry says, sizing Adam up. Adam blinks a few times, still trying to figure out how Louis jumped from point A to point F. His logic doesn’t make any sense, but Harry seems to take it in stride.

“There has to be an answer,” Adam finally says. There has to be, because neither Harry nor Adam (nor Louis, for that matter) is comfortable with the alternative.

“So then we retrace your steps.”

It’s a much better suggestion than kissing, so they take it seriously. They find pens and paper, and they both start writing down what they’d done prior to waking up in each other’s bodies. The results are pretty mundane on Adam’s part: he played with his children, walked the dog, wrote music with John, got into a fight with his wife. It’s all a little vague and lacking in details, whereas Harry’s list is a bit more detailed. He had an interview, a press conference, a photo shoot, and a meeting about some label things. And then he notes they sat with Lou for a bit getting pretty, and they had a show, and they had to be smuggled out of their hotel room.

When they’re looking over each other’s lists, Adam asks, “how do you do it?” He’s been Harry for less than 24 hours, but he already gets a glimpse of being followed nonstop by fans and the security detail all over the place.

“I’ve done it since I was sixteen,” is Harry’s answer. He grew up with all the attention and focus and doesn’t know much else. Everything he’s done since he was sixteen was in the spotlight. “Sometimes it gets tiring and I want to lead a more normal life.”

“Did you wish for that?” Louis asks, interjecting himself into the conversation. He’s been looking over the lists and comparing it to any of the movies he remembers watching with his sisters. He doesn’t think this is like Freaky Friday, where they have to come to an understanding of each other; Adam and Harry didn’t know each other.

“Don’t you?” Harry looks at Louis, knowing that with everything going on in his life, he probably wishes he could live without some of the scrutiny. Harry looks at Louis and wonders if he wishes they had less attention on them, if they could be as close as they once were in the public eye.

“Did you say ‘I wanna lead a normal life?’” Louis presses, because if Harry wanted that, then he got it with Adam. Sort of. He feels like he’s onto something and he’s not going to let it go. “Cause Adam’s not quite famous.”

“Hey!” Adam says, which sounds funny coming out of Harry’s mouth. Adam naturally speaks a lot faster than Harry. This is all so strange to the two of them, each watching their own bodies and listening to their own voices do and say things that they wouldn’t do. Adam feels like he’s on drugs again.

“Not like us,” Louis corrects.

“Better.” Adam looks over his own list. He’s trying to come up with something similar, something he might’ve asked for or wished for, but he only comes up with the fight he had with Misha. It seems so immature now.

The door opens before he can bring it up.

“Couple’a hours now,” Liam says, and then he looks and sees the three sitting on the floor. “Who’s this?”

“Adam,” Louis answers, like it’s nothing. Like Liam should know who he is. Adam looks up and gives him an up nod. “And this is Harry. Who apparently needs attention.” Louis elbows him in the side. Right. He’s in Harry’s body.

“The time.” Harry’s looking at the clock, and Adam joins him. They’re running out of time before Adam’s soundcheck. “I’ve gotta go.”

Both of their hearts sink a little, knowing that they’ve made some headway but there’s no time to actually solve this.

*

Harry spends his Uber ride back to the venue listening to Taking Back Sunday. There’s really no other option but to go on tonight as Adam; and he thinks he can do it, minus some of the more extreme antics. If Adam was able to get on stage and pull off being him, then he can struggle through this. Adam had given him a setlist of songs and then let him know that he could get away with singing approximately half of each song while the crowd shouted back the lyrics at them. He just has to hold the mic out to the crowd. And Harry can dance, sort of. A significant portion of Adam’s stage presence is dancing, it turns out, once he watches more videos.

He rolls up to the small venue a couple of seconds late, facing Andy with an exaggerated disappointed look on his face.

“Everything okay?” Andy asks, opening the door for him. The rest of the band is already set on stage, fiddling around with some tuning.

“Yeah, just...went to some museums,” Harry answers. And damn it, he wishes he’d been able to do that. For once, he wouldn’t have been stalked by paps and fans, and he would’ve been able to explore Manhattan. Maybe he’ll do that tomorrow before he calls Adam and Louis to meet up. He should take advantage of being less famous, because he thinks about how maybe he did want that for a brief minute.

Soundcheck is easy enough. It’s the band fooling around on their respective instruments, making fun of Eddie (a guitarist -- there’s three), and running through two of their own songs. Harry manages to get through them, thankful that Adam had clued him as to which songs he should study the most. Passing with the band is the most important part. During soundcheck, their lighting tech works on the stage. They don’t have the elaborate setup that One Direction has, but he’s fiddling with LED screens to play throughout the set. There’s no confetti canons or fireworks, but they’re playing in a thousand cap venue.

After soundcheck, Harry digs through Adam’s backpack to pull out the stage clothes. He’s not thrilled about wearing them, but Adam insisted. It’s his usual uniform of black jeans and black tee shirt; it’s what he wore in nearly every video of Adam that he watched. And it certainly smells like it too. There are boots too, and when Harry goes to slip his foot in one, he’s stopped by something hard. He turns it over and a piece of amethyst rolls out. Picking it up, he turns it over in his hand, recalling the crystals he’d seen around Misha’s office and the rest of the house. Not for the first time, he thinks she might be the cause of it or part of the solution.

 _is your wife a witch?_ he texts into the group chat with a picture of the amethyst attached. It might be rude if it’s not the case, but he has to ask. He’s desperate to get back into his own body.

Louis texts back a single question mark and Adam’s response, which comes just a few minutes before he has to go on stage, is _amethyst for sobriety_.

Harry saunters onto stage, breathing deeply and hoping this goes well. The burst from the strobe lights illuminates the crowd for a half second, and he can see to the back bar. It’s an odd situation, because he’s used to an endless sea of faces, fading out into the back until he can’t make them out any more. There’s no catwalk extending into the crowd and he wonders how Adam manages to swing the mic without taking anybody out -- fans or his own band, because there’s a whole lot less space than he expected. When he attempts a small swing, he manages to clock himself in the face and nixes any further ideas he might’ve entertained about trying that on a larger scale. He also skips the handstand, not willing to fall on his face and ruin Adam’s reputation.

The energy of the crowd is intense. It’s a mix of boys and girls, screaming Adam’s words at Harry. He stumbles through the set, singing some of the words, but mostly staring in awe at the crowd that seems to excel at this. There’s bodies floating through the crowd and security grabs a kid that tries to storm the stage. Most of the time, he dances around the stage, shimmying and twirling, and really playing it up. When the lights dim out, after the encore, they close the night to chants of “TBS” interspersed with “one more song!”

On his way to the van, he’s stopped by a few fans for selfies and signs a couple of posters and album booklets. There’s no need for a team of security or sneaking into a bread truck. In the back of his mind, he can hear Louis prodding him, asking if he specifically asked to be less famous. He makes a mental note to get the guys to sign a copy of the latest album to bring back to Louis once this whole ordeal is through. He’s the only one who is really working through this problem.

*

Adam thinks maybe he should be a little upset that Harry suggested Misha was a witch (and that Louis latched onto that suggestion and started drilling him about his wife), but he also thinks that maybe the idea has some merit. She’s into crystals and smudge sticks and auras, but he also thinks it’s just her idea of trendy, trying to label cultures as a fashion trend. He thinks it’s a bit exhausting, keeping up with her new thing of the moment. He carries a couple of crystals around at her suggestion, after she explained their meaning, but mostly because it makes him feel close to her when they’re so far apart. She believes in their energy or whatever, but he doesn’t think he was holding a crystal while he was chasing his kids around the park.

Adam doesn’t wait for Harry to give him a recap of the show (he suspects the band dragged him to the bar with them, as per usual, where they’ll talk until Andy drags them away). He does one of the stupidest things he can think of: he goes to the internet. There, a review is already in, saying Adam was off his game. He didn’t sing much and didn’t swing his mic, and he wasn’t as stable on his feet. All of this adds up and the commenters start questioning if he was drunk during the show. It’s so unlike him, these days, and he knows why they would ask. It still stings a little. Nobody mentions the rest of the band, and he hates that he overshadows them sometimes, wishes that Shaun and Mark got the attention they deserved for being so good at their instruments. All he has is a history of drama.

After a few pages of comments calling him a drunk and dragging up his history (it’s so exhausting to have people constantly rehash the “feud” with Brand New, John leaving, his failed engagement), he goes to search crystals and switching bodies. Of course, the first page of results is all occurrences from TV shows, and that does nothing to help Adam or Harry. Maybe he’ll text Misha and ask her if she thinks it’s possible, but then he remembers that he hasn’t apologized for the things he said.

He had had a rough day as Harry. Doing the show would’ve been another piece of cake -- he thinks he fumbled through the first one okay -- but it was a day of press and meetings and photoshoots. He doesn’t know Harry well enough to get by under the microscope like that.

“You did alright,” Louis says, sliding into the bunk with him, as if he can read Adam’s mind. He leaves Adam with little to no personal space, and Adam’s starting to think that’s a thing with Louis. It’s in stark contrast to their interaction (or lack thereof) on stage.

“Why aren’t you close to him on stage?” Adam finally asks, unable to control himself and letting curiosity get the better of him.

“It’s better when it’s just us,” Louis says without missing a beat, his tone warns Adam not to ask, and he doesn’t elaborate. It doesn’t satisfy Adam’s need to know. He wants to push the issue, but Louis cuts him off. “What’s with you and Jesse?”

“Who?” Adam asks, brow furrowing.

“From Brand New,” Louis presses. And Adam can’t help but to roll his eyes and shove Louis slightly. “What?”

“That was years ago. I don’t keep in touch with him.” Louis lets out an exaggerated sigh and then rolls onto his side to stare him down.

“Harry’s me best friend,” Louis finally says, and Adam looks at him expectantly. “We had a flat when we were younger, and we’d stay up watching videos of me favorite bands. Brand New and you and The Killers. We watched you at Leeds.”

“You hardly look at him … me, on stage,” Adam presses. He can feel Louis’s eyes boring holes into him, which might be possible given how close they are.

“Things get weird in public.” And there’s that tone again. There’s finality to what he’s saying, a warning not to push further.

*

When Harry wakes up, he remembers again that he’s in Adam’s body. He’s also at Mark’s house, sleeping in the guestroom. They don’t have any plans until they have to go to the studio, and One Direction is doing SNL in Manhattan. He thinks he’ll go into the city himself and explore while he waits to meet with them again.

And that’s exactly what he does. He manages to navigate the LIRR, consulting the internet for help. When he gets to Penn, he sets off, checking out Times Square as a proper tourist and not as a member of the most popular boy band in the world. It’s surreal, getting to pop into the shops without a security team or a crowd of people following him. Every once in a while, somebody locks eyes with him like they recognize him, but he turns his head down and walks forward. He can’t have any run-ins with people who expect him to be Adam. He just wants to explore the MoMA and the Met and the Museum of Natural History. He doesn’t have enough time to hit the Guggenheim, but on his walk he contemplates how they’re going to get back into their own bodies.

It makes no sense, is the thing. He and Adam don’t have anything in common, except for maybe an abundance of hair, a penchant for dancing, some ill advised tattoos, and a love of hideous rings. He can’t imagine what they both did that would’ve made them switch places. Because even if Adam’s wife _was_ a witch and into magic and spells, why would Harry get roped into this? He’s 13 years younger than him and from a different country. From what he saw of her, Misha would have no idea who Harry is.

Adam texts him the information for the hotel they’re staying at, and he knows getting in is going to be a disaster. He hears the crowd of fans gathered at the door before he can see them, and he’s glad for Adam’s height. He spots Paul with no trouble and makes a beeline for him, glad that the boys had the sense to arrange this with him. He helps him into the hotel with nothing more but a confused look. He’ll have to give him a fruit basket or go easy on him once he’s back in his own body.

Up in the room, Adam and Louis are trying to toss popcorn and m&ms into each other’s mouths, and Harry gets that. You exhaust all your options for fun when you’re locked in a hotel room for so long.

“I went sightseeing,” Harry says, by way of announcing his presence. Louis startles, and it causes him to miss the m&m Adam is throwing at him.

“Damn it,” he mutters as it gets him in the cheek. “What?”

“To the museums and Times Square,” Harry clarifies. He looks at Adam-in-his-body, which is still so weird. He can’t wait to wake up from all this and only be able to see himself in mirrors and photographs. He’s been trying his hardest not to look at Adam.

“Great, Haz. And did Broadway have any ideas on how to get you into your own body?” Louis asks, grabbing a handful of popcorn and tossing it at him.

“Oh yeah, we’ve gotta get in touch with a witch on a mountain and have a blood sacrifice,” Harry says, rolling his eyes a bit.

“And where’d you get that black eye?” Louis is relentless with the questions, so used to being around Harry 24/7 and sort of keeping an eye on him, that it’s different to spend gaps of time apart. Even if Harry is in Adam’s body.

“Whacked myself in the face with a microphone. Don’t know how you do it,” Harry answers, looking at Adam, who replies with a half shrug and a smirk.

“Right. Anyway, did you hear you’re married?” Louis asks, leaning over to set the popcorn on the floor. Harry just looks at him. “Yeah, the fans noticed you’ve -- well, Adam’s -- been wearing a ring on the finger, and so you’re married.”

Harry’s eyes drift to Adam’s finger -- or, his physical finger on the body that Adam’s currently inhabiting.

“I’m not. So you know, management,” Louis says with a wave of his hand, something unsaid being shared between them that Adam can’t quite understand.

“Where did you get that?” Harry asks, eyes zeroing in on the ring in question. He gets why Adam would be wearing it, probably missing the feeling of his own wedding band on his finger.

"It was in your bag," Adam answers, pulling it off and inspecting it.

"No, I mean. You've got the same one." Harry gets up and grabs the ring from Adam, looking at it himself. A second later, he holds up his hand.

On one of Harry’s fingers (more correctly, it's physically Adam's finger) is the exact same ring Adam has been twisting arounds his finger for the past two days. There's no doubt about it; they're absolutely hideous.

"Misha bought it at a flea market." Adam pulls the identical ring off his finger and holds it out. It doesn't last long before Louis snatches them both.

"It’s not your wife then,” Louis says, holding up the two rings. “Definitely magical rings.”

"So we have to destroy them then, to get back? Drop them in a volcano," Adam offers, getting confused looks from the boys. "The Lord of the Rings? One does not simply walk into Mordor?"

“Maybe there’s an inscription we need to read.” Harry grabs one of the rings and turns it over, but nothing is written inside. It feels a lot like a dead end.

*

Harry finds himself alone with Louis, Adam excusing himself to the balcony to take a phone call from his wife. He’s not really sure how that’s going to work out, what with Adam having a deeper voice and an English accent in Harry’s body, but he’s appreciative of the time he gets with Louis. Prior to this whole body switching ordeal, Louis had been holing himself up in his bunk. They haven’t been close to the public in a long time, keeping their relationship strictly professional; they used to talk more on the bus and find themselves in each other’s hotel rooms late at night, shooting the shit. But when Zayn left, Louis retreated, the gap widening, as if he was waiting for everybody else to leave.

They’re sitting close on the couch, knees knocking against each other in silence. They used to fit together better than this, pressing up against each other and sharing the same space. But it’s different now, and especially more so because he’s in Adam’s body. Harry isn’t sure what he wants to say to Louis, except the “did you want to be less famous” thing has been gnawing at the back of his mind for an entire day. Any time he went anywhere as Adam, any time he realized he didn’t need a personal security guard, he thought about it. He remembers leaving the hotel the night before he woke up in Adam’s body, thinking how nice it would be to still be able to perform but on a smaller scale. Taking Back Sunday’s popularity certainly fit the bill.

“I miss you,” Louis finally blurts out, breaking the silence. He’s not meeting Harry’s eyes, but he hasn’t physically pulled away. Their knees are still touching, arms still pressed up against each other.

“I miss you too,” Harry says, but he’s staring at Louis. He has no idea where it comes from, apart from the fact that they haven’t actually been around each other for two days. They’ve spent five years breathing down each other’s necks.

“I mean. All the time.” Louis stands up, breaking the physical contact, and Harry feels a wave of missing Louis wash over him despite the fact that he’s right there. “Even when you’re on stage with me. You might as well be Adam.”

“That’s a -- you did that,” Harry says, staring at the hands that are technically Adam’s. “To protect your sisters and Eleanor.” He doesn’t want Louis to feel bad about the rift that grew between them. When it came up, it made sense. He understood what was happening, Louis retreating to keep the public away from his sisters. It didn’t mean they weren’t friends any longer.

“Well, it’s different now.” Louis is finally looking at him. “There’s no Eleanor and the girls understand better now.”

“I said it,” Harry tells him suddenly, wanting Louis to stop looking so hurt. “That night, I wanted to be less famous and I said it.”

“What?”

“Don’t you feel like… like everything gets ruined? I spent a day as Adam, and I got to go to museums and use Uber and nobody even looked at me. Nobody thinks Adam’s in a relationship with his best friend. Everything we do is so scrutinized. Adam wears a ring to feel comfortable and suddenly I’ve eloped?” He stands up too, and next to Adam’s body, Louis looks small. “I miss you too,” he repeats.

Harry thinks if this were a movie, Louis would hug him and everything would be okay. But, he’s reminded that it is not a movie when Louis just stares at him. He’s craving physical contact, the assurance that he isn’t stupid for wishing he could have a somewhat normal life. It may have gotten them into this mess, but he still feels it sometimes.

“If it weren’t so big, this thing, we’d be able to do all that again,” Harry says softly. He misses his flat with Louis, the way they’d cook together (or, more accurately, Harry would cook, and Louis would stick his fingers in things, doing a strange Guy Fieri impression that nearly made Harry cry from laughing). He misses being best friends with him in the way they knew how to be best friends, extremely close and maybe a little uncomfortable for everybody around them.

“I miss it,” Louis finally says, and Harry’s movie moment comes. Louis’s arms around him, but it feels different, and Harry is abruptly taken out of the moment by remembering that he’s not in his own body.

Right.

*

Adam knows answering the phone while he’s in Harry’s body, while he has Harry’s voice, is probably a stupid idea, but Misha doesn’t usually call. He calls her, after shows and when he’s hiding in his bunk, but most of the communication is done via text where she can send him pictures of the boys and the dogs. They’ll face time, Keaton practically barrelling over everybody to get into the frame, to wave at him and tell him everything he did in school for the day. The fact that Misha is calling him is enough to force him to pick up.

“Hey,” he says, coughing in hopes to disguise Harry’s deeper tone as congestion. He’s consciously making an effort to sound a bit southern, to sound less English, and he’s pretty sure he’s mangling the accent.

“Keaton lost a tooth,” she says, forgoing her greeting. The sound of her voice alone makes Adam miss her ten times more. He’s been feeling pretty shitty over the way he left, starting a fight like that, and now he feels absolutely rotten about it. He didn’t get to say goodbye to any of them. He regrets it now; he wants to call off the writing and recording or postpone it or skip out on his portion this round so he can fly home. There’s just the small problem of being in Harry’s body, and there’s no way he can make it to Charlotte undetected like this.

“I miss you.” He says it abruptly, cutting her off before she could say anything further. There’s a tugging in his chest, and he needs to apologize now. There’s been a sinking feeling in his stomach that says he might never get back into his own body, and he couldn’t live with himself if he never made things right with her. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you sick?” she asks, and she sounds like she’s doing 20 things at once. She probably is, he thinks. She probably just got in from a library program with Asa or Keaton’s karate class, and she’s probably’s getting dinner ready.

“Yeah, a bit congested,” he explains, throwing in another cough for good measure. “Misha, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve left the way I did.”

“I know,” she says quietly. There’s a wave of relief through Adam, something calming him now that he’s gotten a chance to say sorry. It might not have fixed things, but at least she heard him. “Keaton wants to talk to you.”

There’s the sound of the phone exchanging hands. In the background, he can hear Misha talking to Asa and rummaging through the bin to feed the dog.

“Dad! I lost a tooth,” Keaton says excitedly. There’s an ache of homesickness in his gut that’s becoming all too familiar. He wants to be home for this; he wants to be the tooth fairy tonight and leave the money under his pillow. “I wasn’t even pulling! I was just wiggling it to show Jonah and it fell out.”

“Aw, man. That’s so cool, Keys,” he says, almost forgetting the accent. He clears his throat. “Have mom send me a picture of your smile.”

“Okay dad. I miss you! Here’s mom.”

“I’ll text you a picture,” Misha says, once she’s got the phone again. “We can talk when you get home. I’ve got dinner going, and Asa needs a bath. There was a paint incident.” She sounds tired, and Adam feels bad for leaving all over again.

After the phone call, Adam just feels tired and a little defeated. He might be in a 21 year old’s body, but he definitely feels 34. He’s certain that it shouldn’t work like that, but then again, body switching shouldn’t be possible, so maybe there’s no real laws of physics behind it. Just thinking about it makes his head ache in the worst way. There’s no way he can carry on being Harry long term, not with the photo shoots and arena tours and other obligations that come along with being in a boy band. He never thought it could be so exhausting. There’s no way he can carry on with never seeing his sons again or even his wife. He loves her, despite the fact that she drives him up a wall sometimes and they rarely see eye-to-eye about anything but their children these days.

Adam gets Harry out of going to the studio by texting the band in the damn group chat (he hates them so much) that he’s meeting up with an old friend for dinner in Manhattan. Nobody seems to question this, and it’s not like his absence is going to affect the recording schedule all that much. Mark and Shaun will handle the first leg, being the rhythm section, and he and John were just going to tweak some lyrics. They can do that any time.

*

Later, at SNL, Harry and Louis find out that Adam is a very terrible actor with very terrible comedic timing. Luckily, Harry is also a very terrible actor with very terrible comedic timing and this doesn’t raise any suspicions. What does raise a few eyebrows is Adam Lazzara’s presence in the building. Paul keeps looking over at him and Louis, who has tried to explain that he’s writing with Adam and doesn’t want to miss getting to bounce ideas off him when inspiration strikes. (Louis calls Adam one of his idols, and Adam would’ve scoffed at the idea of being a boy band member’s idol before. Things have certainly changed.) Harry isn’t sure Paul believes him, not with the way he keeps looking over at him skeptically, but he figures it’s Paul’s job to be wary of things. They definitely need to give him a raise.

It’s the first time Harry gets to witness Adam in his body pretending to be him. It’s a bit strange, definitely, watching his body perform at SNL, and he would not recommend it. Adam has caught on to the lyrics of their top singles by this point, and he’s singing every word he’s supposed to. It’s impressive, and Harry can’t help but to remember how he totally bombed at being Adam. He’s got the black eye to prove it.

There’s an after party, there always is, but he and Adam bail out of it. Louis goes because he needs to spend more time with Liam. He’s been hanging around “Harry” far too often, and he’s pretty sure Liam is either suspicious or jealous.

“So your wife isn’t a witch and it’s not crystals,” Harry says, pulling the ring off his finger. “Could be the ring still though.”

“Could be,” Adam agrees, looking at his own. It’s identical to Harry’s,

“I picked mine up from a vintage shop in LA,” he tells him. He’s holding the ring up, and Adam hands him his. Harry’s holding them in both hands, letting the rings touch for the first time.

And then, nothing happens.

It’s a bit anticlimactic, and Harry doesn’t want to admit that maybe he was hoping that would help. Like the wonder twins or something, the magic would activate when the rings were brought together. There would be a flash of light, and maybe they would be knocked back, and when they came to they’d be in their own bodies.

So this is a bit of a disappointment.

*

When Adam wakes up in the morning, the first thing he notices is that he is very hot. There’s a heavy weight against him, the feeling of another person -- definitely male, and his head is pounding. For a brief moment, he wonders if he got carried away last night, if he had a bit too much to drink and then found somebody who wanted to sleep with Harry. Is it cheating if he sleeps with somebody while he’s in Harry’s body? Technically, he’s married as Adam. It’s too complex of a thought, too much of a moral grey area (though it probably shouldn’t be), to consider while his head is feeling like it’s in a vice.

“Never thought I’d wake up next to Adam Lazzara,” he hears Louis say, and crap, that was Louis pressed against him like that?

Wait, what?

His eyes blink open, and he’s definitely staring at Louis.

“What’d you say?” he says, voice groggy from sleep. But that isn’t an English accent clinging to his words. He doesn’t wait for Louis to answer, just looks down at his own hands, and he wants to kiss Louis when he sees his familiar tattoos.

From the couch, he can hear Harry groan, and he knows how he must feel. Because he doesn’t think this headache is going to go away until he’s got some Tylenol in him.

“What?” Louis asks, staring at him and then looking past the bed to the couch. Harry slowly pokes his head up.

“Louis?” Harry calls from the couch, accent in place where it belongs, voice impossibly deep with sleep coating it.

Adam manages to roll out of the bed, relieved he’s wearing a pair of pants. There’s a full length mirror in the bathroom, and he spends a good five minutes looking at his own face and body. Everything is as it should be, from his beard to the stupid tattoos on his leg. His wedding band is in its rightful place. He pinches himself a couple of times to assure himself that this isn’t a dream.

It’s not.

When he steps back into the room, Harry is standing up, looking down at his own body, and Louis is quizzing him on things he supposes only Harry would know.

Harry is smiling right at him, and Adam reciprocates. He’s never been happier to see anybody, but he figures that has a lot to do with the fact that seeing Harry means he’s not in Harry’s body.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Harry says.


End file.
